Good evening. I’m starting on tonight’s Tech at Night earlier than usual. That’s because I have much to cover. Sometimes a whole bunch of interesting stories just pop up all at once, and I don’t want to leave any out. So let’s hurry up and start.

For all the way the far left is flipping out over the Fox/Cablevision dispute – in which Cablevision refuses to pay for Fox’s content, and so Fox in turn threatens to
take that content away – the FCC let the cat out of the bag by pointing out that Cablevision customers
have four or even five alternatives, depending on where they live.

Competition protects the public better than government ever, ever could.

Of course, some on the left are beginning to realize that their utility-driven arguments are wrong, and are being demolished routinely, so they’re going with other, more emotional appeals. The ACLU is claiming now it’s a “rights” issue:

The First Amendment, of course, protects speech only from the government. But access to the Internet is provided by private corporations enabled by government, and protecting the same interests and values that the First Amendment protects, requires in this case that the government create strong policies against incursion by companies that are, at root, profit-seeking
rather than civic-minded. That is why the ACLU has long supported network neutrality.